A graphic novel approach to a current issue, a collaboration between two friends.

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Hidden in Plain Sight (1)

Hidden in Plain Sight (2)

Hidden in Plain Sight (3)

Hidden in Plain Sight (4)

Hidden in Plain Sight (5)

Transcript

Page 1:

Hidden in Plain Sight

Written by: Maia Hodgin & Illustrated by: Juna Hume-Clark

What is Racism?

“First of all, when you ask someone what racism is, they are probably going to say something like ‘racism is one person being mean or cruel to a POC.*'”

*Person of Color

Page 2:

When actually those are just the most obvious forms of racism. Most people can only agree that this type of racism is not right. But – let’s think of that type of racism as overt – obvious – the tip of the iceberg.

“But ignoring your problems won’t help either.” “Eh, not true, I ignored all 7 of these bees around me and all of them died after stinging me!”

But covert – not obvious racism – is at the bottom of the iceberg; “I don’t see color,” “Make America Great Again,” Euro-Centric School curriculum, Denial of White Privilege

These kinds of racism are everywhere, like the other day at school…

Page 3:

Har, har, har, snort, hee, hee

Why can’t they just shut up?

“Young men, do I have to call your parents, or will you be quiet?!?” “No, miss.”

What is that about?

Why did the teacher reprimand them instead of the ones making all the noise? Should I say something?

“Uh, Maia?”

I thought that the teacher reprimanded these two students of color because she expected them to be noisy even when they weren’t.

Page 4:

… And it is so important to call out, but I didn’t, and I really wish I did. Here is some of the possible answers if I had said something:

The Positive way:

Teacher: “Thank you for pointing that out, I will work on my snap judgements.”

The Negative way:

Teacher: “No, of course not! I don’t see color! They were just louder.” (Here she is denying that she has an unconscious bias)

Page 5:

“To sum it all up, race isn’t the problem, racism is. And the reason it’s still around is because well-meaning white people contribute to it thinking they are doing the right thing or not doing anything at all.”

“An example is voting for our current president, lots of well-meaning white people did it, and they may never in their life physically hurt a person of color, but voting for him means that they are okay with other people doing it.”

An example: The Washington Redskins logo*

*We will not reproduce this racist image

Thank you for reading this comic and we hope you think about these concepts.

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